Different yet the same. Christmas comparisons in the ED world.

Christmas was different this year. I want to write how many kg more difference but I know that shouldn’t be important. The fact that it is important signals a long way to go. The fact that as I sat in my doctor’s room crying in panic when she asked if she should weigh me, signals a long way to go.

Wrapping up, winding down therapy mode…. I envisioned a sense of freedom from the ED. I thought I would feel ready…free…non disordered.

Not the case.

However, if I compare this Christmas with last Christmas, what comes out?

A year ago, Christmas Day I had a few hours sleep before getting up at 4:30am to go to the gym. I could not let Christmas impede on my exercise regime. And yes, the 24hr gyms allow you the choice to be there on Christmas Day. I was relieved I wasn’t the first person, or the only person, crazy enough to be there. I even knew the person there before me. I wondered if she was as disordered as I was… Using training for an event as an excuse. I didn’t have an excuse, I just pretended I was so amazingly committed to my fitness instead of the truth, that I was amazingly committed to my disorder. I managed to get home just as the kids were waking…. Phew. I did it! Exhaustion set in later of course.

This year, I was woken at 5:35am with a preference for more sleep and begrudgingly got out of bed at 6am. No workouts this Christmas. Am I less disordered because I didn’t go to the gym on Christmas Day? Or does that negate itself because I was thinking ‘there’s not much point cos I’m fat anyway?’

I’m still managing without counting calories in, calories out, excessive exercise, or weighing myself or food. High five! You go girl! Oh, but I’ve purged several times this week, have restricted, and am always aware of how big I am… how disgusting I feel.

I contemplate taking the full dive back in to the murky, sad waters but I’m getting old. I’m getting tired. I don’t think my body will cope with another round of harm. It’s now left aching and slightly injured even without the over training… It will not take another battering so well.

No deep diving. Instead I live right now, snorkeling. Wading through the surface of it. Occasionally hitting deep but having to come up for air in rapid succession.

My analogy in a recent post was ‘snakes and ladders’. Sliding down and climbing back up.

But this…

This feels deeper then before…
Lower than before…
More murky than before.
This feels…
More constant than before.
More encompassing than before…
More suffocating than before.

So today, I bought more antidote.
I love water, I do. I feel akin to its life giving force…but my water has gotten murky and pathogenic again. I need some dry land training while I filter this water.

Antidotal yoga. The gentle washing away of pathogenic thoughts. The stillness, the being, the meeting of my true self once again.